


Dropping the Mask

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Age Difference, Costume Parties & Masquerades, F/M, Future Fic, Het, Romance, Spookyflashweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 12:46:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5091278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a year away, Caitlin returns to town. Someone still recognises her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dropping the Mask

**Author's Note:**

> For SpookyFlashWeek, day 4, masquerade AU

The ballroom looks like a winter wonderland, tiny white and blue fairy lights threaded along the ceiling, silvery grey artificial trees around the walls giving the illusion that they're in a snow covered forest. It looks like the kind of place where Killer Frost would be right at home, which only partly explains why Caitlin Snow feels so on edge. 

She knows she's crazy to be here, both here in the ballroom and here in Central City. She left over a year ago, for a number of very good reasons and she had every intention of never returning. 

She'd just never realised how much of her heart she'd left behind her. 

Keeping tabs on her old friends had been easy - she's no Felicity but you don't get to her level of accomplishment without picking up a few computer tricks. Spending days and nights on end in the company of Cisco hadn't hurt either. She'd been happy with the knowledge of what they were doing, that they were all safe, until she'd seen the notice about the masquerade ball and the notion had come to her, quiet and inescapable, that she would be hidden behind a mask, that no-one would know she was there. 

Once thought, it couldn't be unthought and so here she was, hair a pale shade of ashy blonde teased to elegant perfection, clad in a long silver gown that doesn't look out of place among Central City's movers and shakers but is like nothing that she would ever have worn in her old life. A mask covers her face and she's glad the hand holding it up isn't shaking as she surveys the room. 

That only happens when she sees him. 

Like every other man there, he's wearing a tuxedo, the clean lines emphasising his strong build. A Phantom of the Opera type mask covers half his face, the white a shocking contrast to his dark skin. The mask, unlike hers, leaves both his hands free, a necessity for a cop she supposes, and his eyes scan the room as he looks for danger. 

Her breath catches in her throat and her hand tightens around her mask. The sudden urge to flee is overpowering but she finds herself rooted to the spot, unable to either move or look away. 

Which, of course, is when his wandering eyes land on her. 

And freeze there. 

She freezes too, this time literally as well as figuratively, the cold rising up in her through sheer panic and it takes everything in her, every trick she's ever learned, to keep it at bay.  Slowly, carefully, not wanting to make a scene, she pivots on the ridiculously high heels that she can't move quickly in and makes her way towards the nearest exit. 

Of course, he's a cop and he knows how to cut her off, intercepts her easily in the parking lot. She ducks her head, pretends she's someone else and mutters, "Excuse me," but a gentle touch to her elbow tells her it's not going to be that easy. 

"Caitlin." Her name is a low murmur from his lips, somewhere between a breath and a benediction and a rush of warmth surges through her, intensifies when she looks up, meets his eyes. "I'd know you anywhere," he tells her and she nods, lets the mask fall away from her face. The look of joy that she sees in return is more than she ever dreamed possible and when he cups her face in his hands, brings his lips to hers, it's even better. 


End file.
